Grateful Dead

March 17 - 23, 2008

This week we're going to hang out on the East Coast during a couple of the fine Spring Tours of the later years that took place, including music from 1990 and 1991.

Our first stop is at the first of two nights in Hartford, CT, shows that were surprise gigs, although not quite on the same level as those of Hampton, VA, in October, 1989. These Hartford shows were announced only four days in advance, and sold out instantly, as would be expected for shows by the Grateful Dead in 1990. From that first show, we have the opening combination of Shakedown Street>Little Red Rooster. These shows, as was the entire tour, were recorded to stellar-sounding 24 track analog tape, so future major releases can certainly be drawn from these shows as well as others from the tour. The Atlanta gigs are personal favourites as well, not to mention the two nights in Canada right after Hartford.

From the next night in Hartford, we have the very cool second set closing jam of China Doll>Gimme Some Lovin'>GDTRFB>Around and Around, with a very interesting new arrangement of Around and Around, in which they slow things down to a nice bluesy jam before building it all back up for the finale. Neat stuff indeed.

The next run of shows would be the two aforementioned, spectacular nights at Copps Coliseum in Hamilton, Ontario. These two shows featured loads of great music, including the great Scarlet>Fire that was included on the So Many Roads boxed set and the complete Hey Jude played here last year. From the second show, 3/22/90, we are pleased to play you the opening combination of songs, Feel Like A Stranger, West LA Fadeaway, Easy To Love You.

Finally this week, we have the second set opening jam from 3/18/91 at the Capital Center in Landover, MD. This four night run of shows produced some exceptional music, including this Playing In The Band>Uncle John's Band>Playing In The Band>Terrapin Station sequence. We'll be sure hit up this great run of shows for more music in future installments of the Tapers Section.

Thanks for stopping by. Be sure to check in next week for more great music from the vault, and as always, feel free to write to the email address below with questions, comments or suggestions. It's always great to hear from you.

when the band kicked in the back speakers second set i almost cr#ped myself! it really set off the buzz. we had the best night and of course got lost coming out of hartford and i think their was fog. great shows both nights. we heard the rumers and drove from mass to the civic center and they went on sale later that day. third row both nights. great aiko-aiko at some point..i had class the next morning in mass(high school) and i was still up with a smile and ready to go off the canada!!!

i knew it was spring, they always seemed to play hartford in the springtime, 'east coast spring tour,' just those words give me spine tingles, hartford was a good stopover, until they stopped stopping over there, for some unspoken reason .... the grateful lost dog ...

There seems to be a great difference between tracks as far as volume goes, and it's always really quiet out of my speakers compared to the CDs I listen to. Anyway to fix that? I wanna hear Brent scream all those nice words in LL Rooster at an unGodly level.

there are none posted, it just says "two nights in Hartford, CT" but no dates, i record every single taper section entree and archive and catalog them what is (are) the dates of these shows .. ? thanks and indeed hartford has seen some great shows, 10/14 and 15 '83 for instance ...........

Those two shows were so much fun that new words need to be invented for me to describe them. How about "Exapoulous" or "Spacetacular" Seriously, they were so incedible. I feel lucky to have picked these two shows to go to. When we saw Canada was on the list we were like "Hell Yeah... We're going across the border"!!!!! I sold my Saxophone to help finance this and honestly (since I got another Sax) it was worth it. I swear on 3/22, the arena lifted off the ground and started flying around. It was during Space. You could feel the top spinning around and then, Holy Shit, We're Flying!!! I call that the "HSWF" space. It really was some mind splitting emotional high energy visual colorful tye dyed brain stuff! Man it was awesome. It is nice to hear these shows sounding so good today!! I have great copies of both nights and they are on my I Pod. I take it with me everywhere.

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